[99] Theologians took infinite pains to distinguish between miracles (_miracula_), which could be wrought by divine power only, and the kind of wonders (_mira_) which Satan worked. See, for example, William Perkins, A Discourse of the Damned Art of Witchcraft, 1608, pp. 12 ff., 18 ff.; Del Rio, Disquisitiones Magicæ, lib. ii, quæstio 7, ed. 1616, pp. 103 ff. Sir Robert Filmer, in An Advertisement to the Jurymen of England, Touching Witches (appended to The Free-holders Grand Inquest, 1679; cf. p. 34, note 88, above), makes merry with such fine-spun distinctions. “Both [Perkins and Del Rio],” he says, “seem to agree in this, that he had need be an admirable or profound Philosopher, that can distinguish between a Wonder and a Miracle; it would pose _Aristotle_ himself, to tell us every thing that can be done by the power of Nature, and what things cannot; for there be daily many things found out, and daily more may be, which our Fore-fathers never knew to be possible in Nature” (pp. 322-323). Cf. Calef, More Wonders of the Invisible World, 1700, p. 35. [100] Cf. Soldan, Geschichte der Hexenprozesse, ed. Heppe, II, 243:--“Zu derjenigen freieren Kritik der biblischen Schriften selbst sich zu erheben, welche das Vorhandensein gewisser, aus den Begriffen der Zeit geschöpfter dämonologischen Vorstellungen in der Bibel anerkennt, ohne daraus eine bindende Norm für den Glauben herzuleiten,--diese war freilich erst einem späteren Zeitalter vorbehalten. Bekker kannte, um seine sich ihm aufdringende philosophische Ueberzeugung mit der Bibel zu versöhnen, keinen andern Weg, als den der Üblichen Exegese, und daher kommt es, dass diese nicht überall eine ungezwungene ist.” It is instructive to note the pains which Sir Walter Scott takes, in his Second Letter on Demonology and Witchcraft, to harmonise the Bible with his views on these subjects. [101] To avoid all possibility of misapprehension I shall venture to express my own feelings. The two men who appeal to me most in the whole affair of witchcraft are Friedrich Spee, the Jesuit, and Balthasar Bekker, the “intolerable” pastor of Amsterdam. But what I _feel_, and what all of us feel, is not to the purpose. There has been too much feeling in modern discussions of witchcraft already. [102] Sigmund Riezler, Geschichte der Hexenprozesse in Bayern, Stuttgart, 1896, p. 143. [103] Ibid. [104] Soldan, Geschichte der Hexenprozesse, revised by Heppe, II, 37; cf. G. L. Burr, The Fate of Dietrich Flade, 1891 (reprinted from the Papers of the American Historical Association, V).